


Rising Fast and Dark and Deep

by snugsnake



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Coffee, Emotionally Repressed, Eyes, Gen, M/M, Sleep Deprivation, attempted description of the restlessness one feels as a hermit, clarity by way of sleep deprivation, five am logic, maybe too much clarity though given how thick Ford is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 21:16:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18558028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snugsnake/pseuds/snugsnake
Summary: The thoughts of a sleep-deprived madman. The regrets of a man with no humility..With the loss of yet another right-hand man, Ford is left to consider what that man actually meant to him, but who knows if it'll stick with all the nights of sleep he's missed, or if it'll make the slightest bit of difference, or sense.Based off lyrics of one Patrick wolf song, and titled with the lyrics of another.





	Rising Fast and Dark and Deep

**Author's Note:**

> Just trying to flex the ol' writing muscle and dipping my toe into the waters of actually posting written work online.  
> It's more like a thought piece than an actual story though. 
> 
> The Patrick wolf songs mentioned and used to build this drabble were "The Bachelor" and "The Sun is Often Out", and they're both great songs, so uh, listen to them.

**_I wanna be a Witchman_ **

**_No one will wear my silver ring_ **

 

**_Poor little turtledove sitting up in pine_ **

**_Mourning for your own true love,_ **

**_Why not me for mine?_ **

 

“Hey, Fiddlefor--” He begins out of habit out of nowhere before the words fall short.

 

The table in the kitchen looked like something a bookcase spat up; A cluttered mess of papers and books which really shouldn’t have been bent backwards and laying open face down with the impacted weight of the books above.

 

Fiddleford at least made attempt to manage that clutter Ford thought. At least tried to make the kitchen table resemble something closer to a place where you sit and eat, instead of just another junk dune in his junk hut.

 

“It’s not junk.” Ford says to no one. But he scarce remembered a time where he used even half of these documents.

He didn’t like the silence, but no. He couldn’t stand the thought of having to share this space again with the **_eyes...eyes……._ **   He twitched. A judging gaze. A worried, warm gaze. Someone who cared. A bright ray of sun cracking through this desolate place with it’s dank air.

He could just hear Fiddleford’s sigh.

“Crack open a window, Stanford. I think I see yer brain startin’ to smoke.”

Ford says nothing, because he has no time for Fiddleford’s jest. Every word pricks at his nerves like the strings of a banjo. Even the sound of Fiddleford breathing at times like these, the moment of utmost importance where he needs every ounce of his intellect, grates on him. There’s a chalkboard in Ford’s mind where notes are taken, charts are mapped, and equations and formulas are solved and recorded. At that moment he was using it for all of the above and Fiddleford was dragging nails across it with his nazely drawl.

“You’ve been at it for days. Don’tcha think now’s a good time to take a stretch or a walk maybe? Get a bit of fresh air?” Fiddleford says as his voice grows closer, with the fussy footsteps of a worried housewife echoing in tow.

“There’s air everywhere, Fiddleford.” He states in a grumble.

“You know that’s not what I mean, Stanford.”

“Actually, I don’t.” Louder now, in case Fiddleford didn’t get the picture.

“I think ya do an’ yer just being stubborn.”

But he wasn’t, and at the the time he really didn’t.

 

But he was starting to and he was wondering why Fiddleford didn’t leave at times like that, and taking a walk as instructed (though it was a little late) he wonders why he didn’t take every piece of advice he was given, understanding it or not.

Bill had his perks. Ford no longer had to leave the comfort of his study to get his research for one. All he had to do was meditate. Sit. Breathe. Relax. Have a good talk with a good friend, while effortlessly ingesting knowledge. He wondered why It was somehow less sickening to live within his own filth than to open up a window and see the sun. Stirred something milky into a potent brown liquid with a bitter smell, which he realized were milk and coffee, and that he was sitting in a booth, and that somewhere along the way he must’ve wandered into the diner. Made perfect sense. He couldn’t use his kitchen for eating anymore.

“And if ya realize that already, why don’t you just hunker down and clean it?”

That’s what fiddleford would say, he guessed, but he didn’t know. Something just…. Something was telling him he wouldn’t, or couldn’t.

_‘I won’t be able to for a very long time.’_ was all he was sure of. He rarely put any stock into intuition without hard facts, but he just knew.

In times where the panic had hit its peak, or when the panic and combined sleeplessness over sleepless nights peaked together and synchronized, everything seemed to move in slow motion. Every head in that diner seemed to turn at a tension building pace. For an eternity. Like the moment before a terrifying reveal in a nightmare. The moment before you hit the ground at the bottom of an impossibly high cliff where time slows to a crawl as you contemplate every shade of terror your mind is now experiencing. You have time enough to fear, but never time enough to make peace with your own death.

 

**Eyes.**

**E yes.**

**E y es.**

**E y e s.**

 

Fixed on him, all of them.

There’s no time to make things right anymore.

 

**_‘Cause I know_ **

**_I’m not gonna marry in the fall_ **

**_I’m not gonna marry in the spring_ **

 

**_I will never marry, marry at all_ **

**_No one will wear my silver ring_ **

**_Wear my silver no one will_ **

 

Fiddleford would’ve made him sleep. Fiddleford the power-napping master.

Fiddleford who could sleep pretty much anywhere. Overly trusting. Arkansas must’ve been a safer place than Jersey if you could casually pick any public street corner and start napping there like it’s no big deal. Overly trusting, and now he thought RECKLESS, or maybe just stupid. (Setting aside the fact the day he met Bill was a drowsy one and he happened to doze off in the woods; A mistake he’d _never_ repeat.)

They say Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise, but Ford prized both his wisdom and ability to forgo sleep for days at a time, and the skill had come in handy in the wake of Bill’s betrayal.

 

“One day yer gonna regret it, y’know..”

He wasn’t sure if he was asleep or awake now. Asleep. Oh right. He couldn’t fall asleep, because of Bill…….. _because of_ **_Bill._ **He snapped up.

“Tape….” He thought groggily, weaving around piles of this and piles of that to reach the last place he thought he saw some.

 

He pulls the clear sticky strip and nicks it off neatly along the small set of razor teeth, and perches it on the edge of his index finger. He uses the other index finger to lift the upper lid while hovering the tape over the bottom lid..

“Oh, come on, Ford. You know that ain’t healthy.”

“Shut up, Fiddleford. You’re not here.”

So, on goes the tape.

 

He wouldn’t go out so easy. His mind was being ravaged by Bill. So what?

His body wouldn’t soon follow.

Although he could scarcely remember the last time he put a decent meal through it, and if what he had yesterday was soup which might’ve only looked and smelled suspiciously like coffee, or just coffee again?

Lack of walks and fresh air aside… ‘Regret it’? Ford wasn’t exactly letting himself go.

All his life before he’d eaten balanced meals. The worst thing he put into himself was jelly beans, but it was a good go to for replenishing sugar between work.  He’d break up study time with the occasional pushups and jumping jacks to promote blood flow and retain some muscle mass.

He wasn’t a sloucher. His posture was perfect, in fact, holding his head level and pinnacle over the rest of his body which stood straight and tall and firm. He was, however, a huncher when it came to time spent toiling over his desk.

He gets jabbed in the back with a pencil when Fiddleford easily could’ve just told him-- asked him politely to correct himself.

 

Good riddance, Fiddleford.

 

He’d used to be a lot less blunt and controlling. He remembers a time where Fiddleford would be putting his coat on then hoover in the doorway for a few extra seconds, shuffling his feet and fidgeting. Ask if Ford’s lookin’ to turn in anytime soon.

 

“Work comes first, Fiddleford. You know that. But I shouldn’t be long.”

 

“......M’kay.” Fiddleford said apprehensively. Wasn’t the first time or the last time he’d said those words in that way, lingering a few seconds more before finally leaving the shack.

 

Ford appreciated the concern back then. He believed the term was “the yin to his yang”. Then, it got bad. Suggestions became less meek, more blunt, and just who even asked you, Fiddleford?

 

To nag, to critique, to give his opinion when it was never requested.

 

“Fiddleford, you’re not my wife. In fact, you _have_ a wife, as well as a child.”

He said once, or spat more like, and Fiddleford frowned.

“Not your wife. Your friend.”

 

The calm, almost refined anger of Fiddleford never ceased to annoy him. There was a kind of finality in those words. The fact Ford could add nothing as Fiddleford simply went back to his own work on his own side of the room, left Ford flustered and he couldn’t help but search his mind for more to say or a way to push the matter, when previously all he wanted was for Fiddleford to shut up, and he was getting his wish, so why?

 

He didn’t think conflict was better than silence. Or, he didn’t **_think_ ** so at least.

Maybe being around someone constantly was meant to be annoying sometimes. Maybe friendship wasn’t always convenience.

 

Then, his own word, the one he used without considering it… ‘Wife’. Heh. Marriage. Ford loved his work, and if it were possible to legally do so, he’d marry it.

 

He had someone there where there’d been no one for a while.

 

Maybe there was a gemini-shaped hole in his chest he was trying to fill with the sun, but the sun didn’t fit. Still, it was agreeable. Intelligent. Warm.

 

_‘No, you’re not my wife. You’re not even my friend. You’re just my partner, so do what I asked you to do, don’t ask questions, and don’t let the door hit you on your way out.’ … would’ve been most accurate._

 

_‘….Lookin’ to turn in anytime soon?’_

 

“No, Fiddleford, and there’s a very good reason this time. Believe me…”

Ford said in the livingroom at 3 am, where all the lights were turned on to encourage wakefulness, and also to ensure nothing might’ve been lurking in the shadows, namely things that were ocular and gold. Upon noticing his coffee cup was empty again, he stood, room swaying, swelling, distorting like a lava lamp bounce house, and somehow he managed his way through the scientific obstacle course to the counter where the coffee maker sat. Considered for a moment just unplugging it and bringing it closer to the couch for easier access, but no, the sink was still a requirement. He filled the reservoir and replaced the grounds. Soon enough, the brew started to fill the pot, rising fast and dark.

 

Bill was waiting for a slip-up. Ford had to be strong.

Ford had to be strong when all he wanted was to go for a walk, get some fresh air, and cry into the chest of someone who was warm and southern and beg in every way he know how to somehow be forgiven if there was anything left in Ford worth forgiving.

 

**_I got hogs in the pen_ **

**_and corn to feed them on_ **

**_All I want is someone_ **

 

**_who will feed them_ **

**_When I’m dead_ **

**_and gone_ **

 

He blinked. Figured one day he’d sleep again, long after all this has passed, and whatever automatic, nonsensical drunken thoughts he was having wouldn’t be left as a even a memory.

 

Or. Wait….. Nope, they were gone already.

 

He takes another sip of his coffee. Black. Pungent. Thick as the air in his house.

Thick as his mind.

  


**Author's Note:**

> You'll notice I compare Fiddleford to the sun alot. I just headcanon him as a Leo, and I like to offset that sun energy against Ford's almost Aries-like Mars energy. (Canon birthday aside, of course.)  
> So that's all, but while posting this I've considered potentially putting on The Sun is Often Out and seeing if I can squeeze out a Fiddleford perspective. I've got the energy in mind, but not the words. Still, it might add some clarity to the ideas I was trying to build here since Ford generally has less clarity and more he's trying to prove, so we'll just see what happens, eh?


End file.
